Notes from NSBA T+L2 Panel
Here are some bullet points from the panel discussion ( in no particular order):
- Our vision of schools, teachers, curriculum and testing needs to change; change will require us to redefine the very core of our profession. -Ian Jukes
- A 10 year plan cannot work; we need a dynamic, living document. -Jared Polis
- Students should be at the center of the plan. -Kent Tamsen
- Prepare students to compete in a global marketplace. -Leroy Williams
- Equality of access and opportunity must be a priority for all regardless of geography or economics. -Leroy Williams
- Reorganize schools around freedom and access rather than limitations and barriers. -Kelly Craig
- Technology literacy is not adequate; students can become literate on their own; what we need to foster is information literacy and critical thinking. -Ian Jukes
- Students need to have learning opportunities to apply their skills. -Ian Jukes
- School should produce opportunity in vocational endeavored, higher education as well as boost learning across all content areas and facilitate learning adaptability in our students. -Jared Polis
- Support school services to be available at home to empower and involve parents. -Leroy Williams
- Online schools are public schools too; they should be treated and measured equally. -Jared Polis
- Students don't think they need to know all the facts, but rather be able to effectively and quickly gain access to valid facts and use them in their lives. -Kelly Craig
- Justify investments in technology and any other instructional tool in terms of results expected. -Leroy Williams
- Plan like a quarter-back: don't throw the ball where the target is now, throw the ball where the target will be when the ball gets there. -Ian Jukes
- Begin with the ends in mind. -Ian Jukes
- Don't be afraid to let students use laptops, pdas and cell phones. Let's reorganize our classrooms to so we can use these technologies. -Kelly Craig
- Stop spending 6% of technology dollars on professional development: spend 20-30% instead. -Ian Jukes
- Technology literacy (knows how to use the stuff) is not sufficient; technology integration (can infuse the stuff into what we are already doing) isn't either; we need to achieve transformational use of technology (by using the stuff effectively, we simply work and learn differently and better). -Ian Jukes
- While some students are very technologically savvy, others are not. Close those gaps. -Kelly Craig
- In last ten years, $60 billion spent on technology nation-wide with little to show for it. -Ian Jukes
-Dan Maas
posted by CALET Member | 6:27 PM
4 Comments:
On a personal note, I'd like to step away from chronicling the dialog today and put in my own two cents:
I take some issue with Ian Jukes' assertion that American Education has spent $60 billion with nothing significant to show for it. I have to ask, what is the measure he is using to determine significance? It certainly can't be availability and equality of access when schools went from 0% to 98% connected to world-wide information and communications in under a decade. Since Ian points out that our focus must not be on the stuff of technology, but the student acheivement, I'll bet he is referring, at least in part, to test scores.
But are the tests (CSAP, NWEA, MAPS, Terra Nova, etc) evaluating what needs to be measured in preparing students for a global economy and an Information Age? When have these tests been evaluated with these lenses?
The sad fact is, never. They measure the same old skills education has been charged with teaching for centuries and are still patterned after Industrial Age thinking.
I'll share a personal example:
My son came home with a research project that included a rough draft component. After he had done research, we agreed one afternoon to begin the rough draft. I headed to the computer and pulled up a word processor. I realized my son was not with me and I went to find him. He was sitting patiently at the kitchen table with a pad of paper and pencil waiting for me.
I was stunned. My son is a digital native, why is he thinking paper and not computer?
"My teacher said I can't write my rough draft on the computer. It has to be hand written." he informed me.
Suddenly, I went from confused to frustrated. Yet again, here is a teacher stuck in the Industrial Age model when she should be teaching my son Information Age skills. The only reason you would hand write your rough draft is because it is a pain to type it up on paper. Hand written can be more easily edited and it takes less time. BUT, a computer is even better! My son wasn't going to use a type writer... he wouldn't know one if it fell on him!
So as I headed to the email to complain to his teacher, my wife (a high school assistant principal) informed me that his teacher was required to make my son work this way, because the CSAP requires the kids to work this way!
You see, on the CSAP, students have to hand write essays in rough draft form, then do a re-write on paper. With dire consequences for failing to make AYP, which is calculated on CSAP performance, WHAT CHOICE DID THE TEACHER HAVE! She was required BY THE MEASUREMENT TOOL to remain in an industrial age mode (you've heard the expression, you are what you assess).
So Ian, buddy... I think you've got it a little bit wrong. If your assertion is based at all on test scores, those scores do not bely the information literacy, the critical thinking, and the ability of our students to perform in a knowledge-based global economy.
I'm not saying we've got it all figured out and we're doing it right; but to say we've accomplished nothing is a pretty strong statement and I think it is inaccurate.
Begin with the end in mind: redesign the tests to measure information literacy and critical thinking before you decide our efforts have been worthwhile or not!
-Dan Maas, digital immigrant
I will be commenting on this soon. I don't have the time to give this it's due right now. Thanks Dan for your insight. Were the panel members given the link and invite to this BLOG?
Neil
Neil,
No, they have not yet received it... but I think we can get it to them.
-Dan Maas
Dan,
Thank you so much for posting exactly what I wanted to ask at the meeting, but there was no time for!
I also wanted to add... if the tech savvy world is where these kids are neurologically inclined to learn, why aren't we testing them in that world too? When will the test be done in that environment?
Aren't we doing them a disservice by testing them in their second language (given that IM is their first)?
And we wonder why kids are not successful on tests.... when we aren't sure that tests are measuring what these kids need to know..
The fastest way to make major changes in education would be to change the measurement tool. If administrators and teachers know that information literacy and technological proficiency are being measured on the test (how will they measure it in 2006 as per NCLB?), then the incentive will be there to change the curriculum to match the measurement tool.
Sincerely,
Barb Schulz
Currently "Just a Teacher"
Rye Elementary School
District 70
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Formerly from
CSU-Pueblo Teacher Education Department
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Doctoral Candidate in Computing Technology for Educators
Nova Southeastern University
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P.S. How did you say to get involved in writing the new plan??
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